1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic blood pressure measuring apparatus, particularly to a manual driven electronic blood pressure measuring apparatus.
2. Prior Art
Sphygmomanometers, or blood pressure monitors, have been used for many years as tools for measuring blood pressure values. The typical sphygmomanometer has an arm-banding cuff inflated by an airbag (i.e. an inflation bulb) to restrict blood flow in an artery vessel of a living body, as well as a mercury or mechanical manometer to measure the arterial blood pressure. It is usually used in conjunction with a means such as a stethoscope to determine the systolic and diastolic pressure. The old fashioned mechanical blood pressure monitor normally has to be operated by an experienced health care provider.
With the ongoing global epidemic of cardiovascular disease, blood pressure monitoring is very important from the perspective of health care. Due to their ease of operation and relative measurement accuracy, electronic versions of sphygmomanometers are becoming widely adopted for use at home as well as in hospitals.
Electronic blood pressure monitors, whether automatic or semi-automatic, require an external electric power source to operate, such as a dry cell battery or an AC power supply. However, the external power supply requirement cannot be always readily met under many urgent circumstances, such as in post-disaster emergency situations, or simply in many outdoor environments where a dead battery cannot be supplemented with an AC power backup source. Human life may be threatened in these circumstances.
Several types of self power-generating blood pressure monitors have been proposed, for example, the U.S. patent applications 2008/0319329A1 (2007) of Tseng and 2011/0245696A1 (2011) of Yamashita et al. Although they provide different ways to tackle the issue, there are some obvious problems with each of them. For example, Tseng's patent application harnesses the pressurized air from the elastic bulb to generate the necessary electric power. Disadvantageously, this approach requires a considerable amount of control equipment for generating electricity from air pressure. Yamashita et al. discloses a solar panel that may be used to generate electrical power, but disadvantageously, the measurement cannot start without an initial charging process, which could be an unacceptable limitation in some urgent situations.
Therefore, there exists a great need for a convenient blood pressure monitoring device which is ready in every situation to measure this important vitality index of human beings.